Ch. 3 - Ethics and Criminal Justice Research (W8)

Ethical Issues in Criminal Justice Research

• A few basic principles encompass the variety of ethical issues in criminal justice research • Ethical: conforming to the norms or standards of a group • What we regard as moral and ethical in day-to-day life is no more than a matter of agreement among members of a group (different groups agree on different ethical codes of conduct) • It is extremely useful to know what the society considers ethical and unethical • Ethical issues in criminal justice can be especially challenging because our research questions frequently examine illegal behaviour that people are anxious to conceal (this is true of offenders and, sometimes, people who work in criminal justice agencies

Analysis and Reporting

• As criminal justice researchers, we have ethical obligations to our subjects of study as well as to our colleagues in the scientific community • Researchers have an obligation to make the technical shortcomings and failures known to readers • Any negative findings should be reported • Researchers should avoid the temptation to save face by describing findings as the product of a carefully planned analytic strategy when that is not the case (many findings are unexpected, even though they may seem obvious in retrospect) • Science progresses through honesty and openness and is retarded by ego defenses and deception

Promoting Compliance with Ethical Principles

• Codes of ethics and institutional review boards are two main ways of promoting compliance with ethical principles • 1974: the National Research Act was signed into law after a few highly publicized examples of unethical practices in medical and social science research • A few years later, what has become known as the Belmont Report prescribed a brief but comprehensive set of ethical principles for protecting human subjects • 3 principles were presented: 1) Respect for persons: Individuals must be allowed to make their own decisions about participation in research, and those with limited capacity to make such decisions should have special protection 2) Beneficence: Research should do no harm to participants and seek to produce benefits 3) Justice: The benefits and burdens of participating in research should be distributed fairly • Copious federal regulations have stemmed from these three principles • But in most cases, the research community has adopted two general mechanisms for promoting ethical research practices: codes of professional ethics and institutional review boards

Anonymity and Confidentiality

• Concern in the protection of the subjects' interests and well-being is the protection of their identity (if revealing their behaviour or responses would injure them in any way, adherence to this norm becomes crucial) • Two techniques: anonymity and confidentiality

Voluntary Participation

• Criminal justice research often intrudes into people's lives • The interviewer's telephone call or the arrival of an email questionnaire signals the beginning of an activity that respondents have not requested and that may require a significant portion of their time and energy • Being selected to participate in any sort of research study disrupts subjects' regular activities • Experimental participation must be voluntary • When an instructor in an introductory criminal justice class asks students to fill out a questionnaire that she or her plans to analyze and publish, students should always be told that their participation in the survey is completely voluntary (the instructor should be especially sensitive to the implied sanctions and make provisions to obviate them) • The goal of generalizability may be threatened if experimental subjects or survey respondents are only the people who willingly participate (the same is true when subjects' participation can be brought with small payments) • Research results may not be generalizable to all kinds of people Often, a researcher who conducts observations in the field cannot even reveal that a study is being done for fear that this revelation might significantly affect what is being studied • In cases in which researchers ultimately feel justified in violating voluntary participation, it is all the more important to observe the other ethical norms of scientific research

Introduction

• Despite our best intentions, we don't always recognize ethical issues in research • The problem in criminal justice research is that ethical considerations are not always apparent to us

Institutional Review Board Requirements and Researcher Rights

• Federal regulations contain many more provisions for IRBs and other protections for human subjects (exempt categories): 1) Research conducted in established or commonly accepted educational settings, involving normal educational practices 2) Research involving the use of educational tests (cognitive, diagnostic, aptitude, achievement), survey procedures, interview procedures, or observation of public behaviour, unless: (i) information obtained is recorded in such a manner that human subjects can be identified, directly or through identifiers linked to the subjects; and (ii) any disclosure of the human subjects' responses outside the research could reasonably place the subjects at risk of criminal or civil liability or be damaging to the subjects' financial standing, employability, or reputation 3) Research involving the use of educational tests (cognitive, diagnostic, aptitude, achievement), survey procedures, interview procedures, or observation of public behaviour if: (i) the human subjects are elected or appointed public officials or candidates for public office; or (ii) any personally identifiable information will be maintained as confidential throughout the research and thereafter 4) Research involving the collection or study of existing data, documents, records, pathological specimens, or diagnostic specimens, if these sources are publicly available or if the information is recorded by the investigator in such a manner that subjects cannot be identified, directly or through identifiers linked to the subjects 5) Research and demonstration projects that are conducted by or subject to the approval of department or agency heads, and that are designed to study, evaluate, or otherwise examine: (i) public benefit or service programs; (ii) procedures for obtaining benefits or services under those programs; (iii) possible changes in or alternatives to those programs or procedures; or (iv) possible changes in methods or levels of payment for benefits or services under those programs

Institutional Review Boards - Special Populations

• Federal regulations on human subjects include special provisions for certain types of subjects, called special populations (juveniles and prisoners) • Special populations: groups such as juveniles and prisoners who require special protections if they are research subjects • In most studies that involve juveniles, consent must be obtained both from parents or guardians and from the juvenile subjects themselves • Prisoners are treated as a special population so that they are not exposed to risks that would be considered excessive for nonprison subjects • Undue influence or coercion cannot be used in recruiting prisoner subjects • Informed consent statements presented to prospective subjects must indicate that a decision not to participate in a study will have no influence on work assignments, privileges, or parole decisions • to help ensure that these ethical issues are recognized, if an IRB reviews a project in which prisoners will be subjects, at least one member of that IRB must be either a prisoner or someone specifically designated to represent the interests of prisoners • Randomization is generally recognized as an ethical procedure for selecting subjects or deciding which subjects will receive an experimental treatment

The Stanford Prison Experiment

• Focused on how people behave in formal institutions • Craig Haney, Curtis Banks, and Philip Zimbardo interested in two general explanations • Dispositional hypothesis - prisons are brutal and dehumanizing because of the types of people who run them and are incarcerated in them (inmates have demonstrated their disrespect for legal order and their willingness to use deceit and violence; persons who work as prison guards may be disproportionately authoritarian and sadistic) • Situational hypothesis - the prison environment itself creates brutal, dehumanizing conditions independent of the kinds of people who live and work in the institutions • Tested the situational hypothesis • All subjects signed contracts that included instructions about prisoner and guard roles for the planned 2-week experiment • Subjects in each group accepted their roles all too readily • Two related features of this experiment raise ethical questions: -> subjects were not fully informed of the procedures (deception was partially due to the researchers' uncertainty about how the prison simulation would unfold) -> guards were granted the power to make up and modify rules as the study progressed, and their behaviour became increasingly authoritarian

Institutional Review Boards

• Government agencies and nongovernment organizations (including universities) that conduct research involving human subjects must establish review committees, known as an institutional review board (IRB) • These IRB have two general purposes: -> board members make judgments about the overall risks to human subjects and whether these risks are acceptable, given the expected benefits from actually doing the research -> they determine whether the procedures to be used include adequate safeguards regarding the safety, confidentiality, and general welfare of human subjects • Under HHS regulations, virtually all research that uses human subjects in any way, including simply asking people questions, is subject to IRB review • Federal regulations and IRB guidelines address other potential ethical issues in social research. Foremost among these is the typical IRB requirement for dealing with the ethical principle of voluntary participation

Deceiving Subjects

• In criminal justice research, deception needs to be justified by compelling scientific or administrative concerns • Sometimes, researchers admit that they are doing research but fudge about why they are doing it or for whom. Interviewers could not explain the purpose of the study without potentially biasing responses. Still, it was necessary to provide a plausible explanation for asking detailed provide a plausible explanation for asking detailed questions about personal and family experiences (Widom's solution was to inform subjects that they had been selected to participate in a study of human development. She also prepared a brochure describing her research on human development that was distributed to respondents) • "don't go undercover"

Special Problems-Withholding Desirable Treatments

• Interrupt an experiment if preliminary results indicate that a new policy or drug does in fact produce improvements in a treatment group

Trouble in the Tearoom

• Laud Humphreys • Special interest in the casual and fleeting homosexual acts engaged in by some nonhomosexuals (his research interest focused on male homosexual acts between stragners who met in the public restrooms in parks, called "tearooms" among homosexuals • Participants seemed to lead otherwise conventional lives as family men (it was important to them that they remain anonymous in their tearoom visits) • Humphrey's approach too advantage of the social structure of the situation • Humphreys began to show up at public restrooms, offering to serve as watchqueen whenever it seemed appropriate (he was able to observe behaviour in natural settings) • He noted the license plate numbers of participants' cars and tracked down their names and addresses through the police • He then visited the men at their homes, disguising himself enough to avoid recognition and claiming that he was conducting a survey • Controversy on invasion of privacy and deceit involved

Confidentiality

• Researcher is able to link information with a given person's identity but essentially promises not to do so publicly • Field or survey interviewers who have access to respondent identifications should be trained in their ethical responsibilities (ASAP, all names and address should be removed from data collection forms and replaced by identification numbers + a master identification file should be created linking numbers to names to permit the later correction of missing or contradictory information + this file should be secured and made available only for legitimate purposes) • In any event, subjects should be assured that the information they provide will be used for research purposes only and not be disclosed to third parties

Codes of Professional Ethics

• Researchers can consult one of the codes of ethics produced by professional associations (formal codes of conduct describe what is considered acceptable and unacceptable professional behaviour - e.g., APA code of ethics)

Ethics and Juvenile Gang Members

• Scott Decker and Barrik Van Winkle • They reached a compromise in which they found an advocate for each juvenile member of their sample, this person - a university employee - was responsible for making sure that the subject understood their rights to refuse or quit the interview at any time without penalty and the confidential nature of the project • All subjects signed the consent form

Special Problems - Research Causes Crime

• Some research projects have the potential to produce crime or influence its location or target • Problematic in which research might indirectly promote offending • Some gang members offered to illustrate their willingness to use violence by inviting researchers to witness a drive-by shooting; question of how subjects used the $20 cash payments they received in exchange for being interviewed; the possibility of crime displacement in studies of crime prevention programs (but the scope of displacement is limited and when it does occur, displacement tends to follow major policy changes that are not connected with criminal justice research) • Researchers cannot be expected to control actions by criminal justice officials that may benefit some people at the expense of others • However, it is reasonable to expect researchers involved in planning an evaluation study to anticipate the possibility of such things as displacement and bring them to the attention of program staff

Institutional Review Boards - Informed Consent

• The norm of voluntary participation is usually satisfied through informed consent • Informed consent: agreeing to participate in research after being informed about goals, procedures, and potential risks • If deception is necessary, researchers usually address this problem by telling subjects at least part of the truth or offering a slightly revised version of why the research is being conducted • Another potential problem with obtaining informed consent is ensuring that subjects have the capacity to understand the descriptions of risks, benefits, procedures, and so forth • Other guidelines for obtaining informed consent include explicitly telling people that their participation is voluntary and assuring them of confidentiality • However, it is more important to understand how informed consent addresses key ethical issues in conducting criminal justice research -> it ensure that participation is voluntary -> by informing subjects of procedures, risks, and benefits, researchers are empowering the to resolve the fundamental ethical dilemma of whether the possible benefits of the research offset the possible risks of participation

Two Ethical Controversies

• Two examples of controversial studies illustrate key issues in ethics • Sexual behaviour in public restrooms • Stanford Prison Experiment

Legal Liability

• Two types of ethical problems expose researchers to potential legal liability: 1) making field observations of criminal activity that is not reported to police such as obstructing justice or being an accessory to a crime (or situation in which participant observation of crime or deviance draws researchers into criminal or deviant roles themselves) 2) involves knowledge that research subjects have committed illegal acts • Federal law protects researchers from legal actions in most circumstances, provided that appropriate safeguards are used to protect research data • The NIJ (national institute of justice) provisions not only protect researchers from legal actions but also can be valuable in assuring subjects that they cannot be prosecuted for crimes they describe to an interviewer or field worker • Somewhere between legal liability and physical danger lies the potential risk to field researchers from law enforcement

No Harm to Participants

• Weighing the potential benefits from doing research against the possibility of harm to the people being studied - or harm to other people - is a fundamental ethical dilemma in all research • Social research may cause psychological harm or embarrassment in people who are asked to reveal information about themselves • Criminal justice research has the potential to produce both physical and psychological harm, as well as embarrassment • Harm to subjects, researchers, or third parties is possible in field studies that collect information from or about persons engaged in criminal activity; this is especially true for field research • Potential danger to field researchers should also be considered • Other researchers acknowledge the potential for harm in the context of respect for ethical principles • 3 different groups at potential risk of physical harm in their research on violence -> research subjects themselves -> researchers might trigger attacks on themselves when they interview subjects who have a history of violent offending -> the possibility that collecting information from unstable individuals might increase the risk of harm to third parties • The potential for psychological harm to subjects exists when interviews are used to collect information • Researchers have taken special steps to reduce the potential for emotional trauma in interviews of domestic violence victims -> E.g., use of self-completed computer questionnaires in the British Crime Survey (affords a greater degree of privacy for research subjects) • Although the fact often goes unrecognized, subjects can also be harmed by the analysis and reporting of data • Information on the city of residence of victims identified in the National Crime Survey is not available to researchers or the public • The relative rarity of some types of crime means that if crime victimization is reported by city of residence individual victims might recognize the portrayal of their experience or might be identified by third parties • Many police departments now use some type of computer-driven crime map, and some have made maps of small areas available to the public on the web • Virtually all research runs some risk of harming other people somehow • A researcher can never completely guard against all possible injuries, yet some study designs make harm more likely than others do • If a particular research procedure seems likely to produce unpleasant effects for subjects - asking survey respondents to report deviant behaviour, for example - the researcher should have firm scientific grounds for doing so • If researchers pursue a design that is essential and also likely to be unpleasant for subjects, they will find themselves in an ethical netherworld, forced to do some personal agonizing • As a general principle, possible harm to subjects may be justified if the potential benefits of the study outweigh the harm • Sensitivity to the issue and experience in research methodology, however, should improve researchers' efforts in delicate areas of inquiry •

Anonymity

• When the researcher cannot associate a given piece of information with the person • Studies that use field observation techniques are often able to ensure that research subjects cannot be identified • Researchers may also gain access to nonpublic records from courts, corrections departments, or other criminal justice agencies in which the names of persons have been removed • E.g., web-based survey with no login or other identifying information • E.g., telephone survey if residential phone numbers are selected at random and respondents are not asked for identifying information • E.g., interviews with subjects in the field if the researchers neither ask for nor record the names of subjects • Respondents in many surveys cannot be considered anonymous because an interviewer collects the information from individuals whose names and addresses are known

Special Problems - Staff Misbehaviour

• While conducting applied research, researchers may become aware of irregular or illegal practices by staff in public agencies • They are then faced with the ethical question of whether to report such information